


Canticle of Benedictions

by Niki



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Conversations, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Slash, Support
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conversations between the two Hands of the Divine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Canticle of Benedictions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moontyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moontyger/gifts).



> Thank you for giving me an excuse to write Leliana/Cassandra, even if I only managed preslash!
> 
> Thank you to a goddess of weaving for beta. (All remaining mistakes are mine, I didn't stop fiddling until the last possible moment...)

“The prisoner is awake,” Leliana said, in lieu of a greeting, and Cassandra dropped her sword hand which had been about to strike the training dummy again.

“Good. It's time we got some answers,” she said, turning to follow the other woman.

“If she can provide some.” Leliana, ever the voice of reason, and she just couldn't take it, not right now, not with the wound as fresh as it was.

“She was there! She was the only one who walked out.” That had to be meaningful, they had to get some answers out of her.

“She's been unconscious for days,” Leliana reminded her, as if she hadn't been there for every damn report of progress from the apostate mage about her condition.

“Maybe something misfired.” Was it grasping at straws? Surely not – the elf had been the only one to come out of the explosion alive. It _had_ to mean something.

“Just remember, she might not be responsible.” Damn the woman and her reasonable...ness. 

“What was a Dalish elf doing there otherwise?”

“She may have been someone's bodyguard.”

“Just because your Warden was Dalish does not mean they are all heroes,” Cassandra felt compelled to point out, and maybe her distaste was more audible than she had intended because Leliana stopped walking and turned to her.

“You are not usually prejudiced against the elves, Cassandra, what is this about?”

“If she killed Divine Justinia...”

“Cassandra...” There was understanding in Leliana's voice, of course there was, but also a hint of reproach, too reminiscent of their late Divine.

“I just.. can't believe she's gone.” 

“I know.” 

“She was...”

“I _know_.”

“I'm sorry, I know you feel the loss too. I know you were closer to her than me.”

“That's not true.”

“Leliana... Let us not pretend the right hand does not know what the left one does. You knew her before she was Divine, you had her ear.”

“She had great trust in you.”

“I know. It's just... you were closer to her. You knew her plans.” She was not bitter because of it, she had known she was a sword to be wielded, not a voice to be heard, but right now it made her feel like she had less of a right to be upset than the woman by her side – especially as she seemed so calm compared to the rage boiling within her own body.

“So did you.”

“I do now, I knew piece by piece. You were there with her for the planning, all of that. I don't mind. I just... we were not friends, not like you and her. You mourn a friend on top of... an institution. I mourn a woman I admired and...”

“And loved.”

“And loved.”

* * *

“You believe her now,” Leliana said, and it was not a question.

“She closed the rift!” Did that sound as defensive to Leliana as to her own ears? But surely Leliana had been the one on the elf's side from the beginning?

“Doesn't mean she didn't cause it,” Leliana said, pointedly, and it reminded Cassandra again that she was a spy, where she herself was a soldier. She knew strategy, but wouldn't see complicated plots all around her.

“We all heard the conversation at the temple,” she reminded them both.

“Echoes of the Fade. Who's to say it was truthful?”

“Now you doubt her? I seem to recall you championing her before we even spoke to her.”

“And you were quick to let go your own doubts,” Leliana shot back. 

She was, wasn't she? How could she explain to the other woman what she felt, why she believed their prisoner now. She wasn't naïve, but how to explain her reasoning to a spymaster suspicious by trade as well as nature?

“I... I fought by her side,” she said, and to her that was so much more than any conversation or a plea of innocence could ever be. “I believe her when she says she wants to help. I believe her when she says she doesn't remember. So even if she was a part of the plot, she is working with us now.”

“Good,” Leliana said simply, stopping all the thoughts and explanations Cassandra had been trying to transform into words.

“Good?”

“I am glad we agree. We are going to need her in the coming days.” Well, in that at least they were in full agreement. 

“Yes, so far she is the only way we know of that can seal the rifts, and there seem to be more reports on them by the day.”

“That, but also... haven't you heard the stories? People are calling her the Herald of Andraste, because they believe the Prophet herself guided her out of the Fade.”

“I've heard whispers, yes. Chancellor Roderick has been very vocal about them.” She was sure her tone made it perfectly clear how she felt about the chancellor and his opinions on anything.

“We can use that.”

“Leliana...” She could feel the fondness in her exasperated voice, so Leliana would most likely hear it as well. 

“People need something to believe in in times like these. It might as well be her.”

“Do you? Believe in her?” Suddenly it felt important to learn what her old friend really thought of the woman who had been a catalyst for so much in just a few days.

“I believe she will help us save the world,” Leliana answered, and wasn't that just pure Sister Nightingale.

“That's not what I asked.”

“I know.”

“And you are not going to answer me?”

“I believe in you, and I believe in me, and what we are building here.”

“It's not about us.”

“No. But it is the Divine's plan, and we are the only ones here who can give her legacy the treatment it deserves.”

“Leliana...”

“Yes?”

“I believe in you as well.”

For whatever it was worth.

* * *

“Guide me through the blackest nights, steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked...” She was reciting the Chant aloud even though she was alone in the Chantry, taking solace in the familiar words and the ritual, needing every ounce of strength the Maker could give her to survive what was coming, and what had already happened.

“I'm sorry,” Leliana's voice interrupted her suddenly from them the doorway. “I'm interrupting. I didn't realise someone was in here. I can go.”

“How would it look like if I barred someone from entering the Chantry?” Cassandra asked, smiling, and stood up to look at her friend. 

“It's all right if you need time, Cassandra,” she replied, smiling back. A small smile, but a kind one – not the fake charm she showed to Orlesians, or the mischievous one that heralded a reference to a secret one thought well guarded, or a mission no one thought could be pulled off.

“I just couldn't sleep,” she explained, looking around their modest little chantry. “I wished visiting here would help me calm my mind but...”

“Something specific on your mind?”

“Too many specifics,” she replied, amused against her will.

“Do you want to share?” Leliana asked, sounding just like her friend at the moment, not a hint of Sister Nightingale in her voice, and Cassandra knew what ever she told her would never be used against her, not in jest or blackmail.

“I was hoping to feel her close again,” she confessed, quietly.

“Divine Justinia? Or Andraste?”

“I don't even know any more. I really thought... I still don't know who it was we saw in the Fade. All I know is how I felt in her presence, that she sacrificed herself to stop the demon we faced. And I don't even know what I want to believe any more. Because if it _was_ her, shouldn't she have been by the Maker's side and not... there.”

“You said she – whoever or whatever she was – helped you, as she had helped our Inquisitor earlier. Isn't that an answer enough?”

“I don't know!” she almost shouted, and regretted her burst of temper immediately. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to yell, not here.”

“Then let's go somewhere else where you can yell if you so wish, Cassandra.” She was smiling again, and that was the best offer Cassandra had heard all day. 

“What do you believe?” she asked Leliana, as they turned to leave.

“You asked me that before, or something like it. My answer hasn't changed. I believe in you.”

* * *

“Did you know about this?” She seldom visited Leliana's realm of the rookery, but she marched there now, the book grasped tightly in her arms, and threw it on the table in front of her.

“About what?”

“Don't act stupid, Leliana! I know you hoard your secrets like a dragon only to wield them like a sword at a later date! Did you know about the Seekers?”

“I wouldn't have kept it from you if I did!” And damn but she sounded so sincere. But she had been trained as a bard – she would sounds as sincere swearing she was Andraste reborn.

“Wouldn't you?” She wanted to believe her, wanted to keep her friend, her closest ally, her strength amid all this turmoil, but if she had kept this from her...

“What are you saying, Cassandra?” Surely that couldn't be hurt in Leliana's voice? 

“Wouldn't you keep something this bad from me if there was nothing good that could come out of it?”

“You don't need coddling, and most definitely not from me.”

“Excuse me, I need to go... hit something.”

“Cassandra...” That was definitely an imploring note in her voice now, and Cassandra felt ashamed. When would she believe her friendship was as important to Leliana as hers was to Cassandra?

“I apologise. I know you... you wouldn't. I believe you.” _I believe in you._ “I just... I need to work through this somehow.”

“Does it need to be alone?” The sadness was replaced with the hint of smile, beguiling but very sincere.

“I thought you were done with field work?” Cassandra said, pointedly dropping her hand on the pommel of her sword to illustrate what kind of 'working through' she had in mind.

“That doesn't mean I've forgotten how to wield a blade,” Leliana replied, her own hands finding the daggers hidden in her person, and Cassandra smiled for the first time since opening that cursed book.

“I would... appreciate company,” she said, the understatement of the ages, and her smile widened as they headed for the training yard.

* * *

“Do you really want to be a Divine, Cassandra?” Leliana asked as they were sitting companionably in the yard after a heated meeting in the war room.

“Want? Probably not. But I was asked, and I... There is so much that needs to be done. I could be the one to do it. Do you want them to choose Vivienne?”

“What about me?”

“What _about_ you?”

“You don't think I could do it?”

“You?”

“You don't need to sound so surprised.” It should have been said mockingly, but again Cassandra thought she heard a note of hurt in her voice.

“I mean... why would you?” she hastened to explain the reason for her reaction. “You have always been more content to act from the shadows, I couldn't picture you taking such a centre position willingly.”

“But you don't think I couldn't do it?” Leliana insisted, and did her opinion matter so much to her?

“Leliana, I believe you can do anything you set your mind to,” she said honestly. “You brought back the Inquisition.”

“We did that. Together,” Leliana reminded her, or maybe the both of them.

“Too bad they probably won't let us take the sunburst throne together,” Cassandra said carelessly, and the glint it brought to Leliana's eyes was very worrying.

“Now there's a thought...” Leliana said, obviously considering something devious and possibly blasphemous.

“Leliana...” she said, warningly, all the while knowing there was way too much fondness in her voice for the reproach to have any meaning.

After all, she couldn't stop considering it herself now. Which probably just meant she'd spent too much time with Leliana.

* * *

“We did it. _She_ did it.” 

Leliana turned to smile at her like there had never been any doubt.

“I told you I believed in us,” she said, taking her hand, and pressing it lightly.

“There were days your faith was the only thing keeping me afloat,” Cassandra admitted, pressing her hand back. 

They stood there for a long time, just looking at the celebrating people – the Inquisitor making her rounds, Josephine fretting over the arrangements, Iron Bull and Sera getting drunker and drunker, the joy and relief almost a visible presence in the air. Cassandra enjoyed seeing it all, but felt no need to join in.

She wanted something, but wasn't sure what, until Leliana tugged at her hand. “Come,” she said, and as she lead them towards the gardens, Cassandra figured out where they were heading, and realised it was perfect. 

They entered the Chantry side by side, and knelt by the statue of Andraste.

“The deep dark before dawn's first light seems eternal, but know that the sun always rises,” Cassandra recited, only then realising she was still holding Leliana's hand, and knowing she never wanted to let go.

“For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost,” Leliana replied, their chosen lines from completely different parts of the Chant but working perfectly together.

Cassandra raised Leliana's hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to her palm.


End file.
